It's all a load of Cannonballs in here! This is the virtual Arsenal pub where you can chat about anything except football. Be warned though, like any pub, the content may not always be suitable for everyone.

1) Economic union has become an all-encompassing political union
2) Union of socially- and economically-aligned Northern/Western European states has allowed all and sundry in to the extent that we are now talking about letting in Turkey - a country of 75 million Muslims whose fans booed remembrance of the Paris attacks, which is closer aligned to Asia than Europe and borders Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Bonkers.

For me the issue of parliamentary sovereignty isn't a big one. Brussels passes down loads of regulations but the vast majority are not detrimental and/or have no practical effect. What I do take exception to is Germany lecturing the rest of Europe (short memories) about its humanitarian responsibilities, just because Germany's ageing and depleted workforce was in need of cheap young labour. Oh, and Germany trying to dictate everything to everyone.

Fundamentally completely unhindered freedom of movement plus such a disparity of welfare systems is never going to balance and makes a mockery of what was founded as an economic union.

The EU is going to unravel sooner or later and whatever concessions David Cameron can try and sell to the public the reality is in 10 years time it will be even more encroaching, even more demanding and even more of a mess. There will be short-term pain because the EU will want to blackball the UK to dissuade other countries from leaving but ultimately I'm not convinced we hold less sway out of the EU than in it. The economic arguments on both sides are just scaremongering at the moment but one undeniable point is that the industry which the EU is strangely least committed to breaking down barriers and protectionism is financial services/insurance, which happens to be by far our strongest export on a world scale.

I despise the European Union and it will take some pretty convincing economic arguments to change my mind.